OT: OSXA?

[z15]

somewhat related to the subject... you know what the (possibly) biggest problem with phpbb is? it's kind of de facto / most widely used board soft and it hasn't exactly been the most bug & exploit free of them all during all the years.

one could say using phpbb is a bit like using internet explorer in that sense. a lot of the hackers will want to target software that "everyone" uses (to make a big impact) and if that piece of software isn't awesomely secure... well, better install new versions fast and hope the devs fix holes soon after the hackers find them. there's even a worm out there that spreads automatically from one not-updated phpbb version to another.

therefore, even though it's a piece of software everyone's using (including kvr) and familiar with, i would advice to check out other alternatives too

[willb]

I agree with velocipede -- I for one would absolutely visit and contribute to both sites.

[putte]

.. nice to see bbl back. and yes, i'd most likely also contribute my schnitzel on both sides.
i hope we'll have osxaudio.net soon ..

thanks for diving into website-mathematics .. i'm glad we have some people here having the knowledge .. dankesehr.

oh. and it would be superb to have the same set of emoticons like kvr ..

putte

[fitch]

wow... it's back... what long time though .. it's going to take me a minute to get used to it again

[markoos]

I just poked my head around the door at OSXA... seems like 'Site Status Update' doesn't have any information about... well, the status of the site. I would have thought it would have been the best place to state some details of up & coming changes, schedules etc.

Anyway - as far as the future - personally I'd rather have a site which was dedicated to mac based audio rather than a dual platform site. If only so we'd know that all of the effort and hardware we have/will be donating for, would be going into the support of our chosen platform. I mean - aren't there enough PC users who can donate to support their own needs?

[µ¿ z3®ø™]

but I would let someone else take over who had the time and resources to take care of it properly. I think that is the source of frustration for many of the fans of the osxa community (among other things).

bb

the flaw in this logic is that in delegating responsibility (a good thing for the most part), sometimes the 'delegates' do not reflect the ethos that was originally intended.
i don't begrudge TDCs choice in moderators or admins, but when U make these choices there is an inevitable chance that some members risk being ostracised, such as the case of barry deleting his valuable posts, fucanny and whatever the issues were there, levon being attacked for being a 'troll' (as if), and myself (who has yet to understand why i could get encouraging PMs from TDC and threatening PMs from one of the mods and all the other infantile crap).
as far as i'm concerned, U make choices w/ the idea that U want to serve the greater and not the lesser. certainly, the choices made by TDC seemed to only have had a deleterious effect on the lesser and not the greater, so by that criterion he seems to have made good choices.
that i was one of the 'lesser' peeps really has absolutely NO bearing on any good wishes that i have for his continued endeavours.
it DOES have much to do w/ the void left for a forum that is OSX specific and has the sort of ethos that cultivates open, respectful discourse and a sense of global community. regardless of whether OSXA/big blue/whatever comes back, there now is a need for something like the old OSXA that attracted peeps like barry, putte, fucany and others.
no we can't go back, but we can certainly go forward.

[mcnicks]

somewhat related to the subject... you know what the (possibly) biggest problem with phpbb is? it's kind of de facto / most widely used board soft and it hasn't exactly been the most bug & exploit free of them all during all the years.

That is a good point. The only time my work has been hacked in any way over the past four years was through a phpBB board that was a couple of days out-of-date. A patch had come out to cover an exploit, which meant that knowledge of the exploit was in the wild, which meant that anybody could simply search Google for "phpBB 2.0.10" or whatever it was and find vulnerable sites, including ours.

Of course, all software suffers from this problem but I just thought that I would point out that I had seen it happen...

D

PS: My last point, about "upgradeability" is related to this. The reason the forum in question was not patches was because we had installed all sorts of mods and hacked the skin we were using, which made it impossible just to untar the new version and move over to it.

[RowdyBacon]

Yes, it appears BBL is back...at least in its old incarnation. But I have to say, I'm still highly in favor of a "Mac-only" alternative. And I'm wondering if that alternative doesn't already exist. Does anyone have any experience with MacMusic http://macmusic.org/home/?lang=EN ?

I forgot that I'd bookmarked this site some time ago. I've been back to it a couple of times in the last few days and I have to say I'm kind of liking its layout and content. I have no idea who administers it, but it's current and pretty comprehensive (especially compared to OSXA I'm sorry to say). And with its dark text on white (or pale blue) background, I find it much easier on the eyes than BBL's white on dark blue. That was always a personal pet peeve with OSXA.

At any rate, I invite all of you to check it out. Perhaps we'll run into each other over there.

[velocipede]

Mac music has been around longer than OSXAudio and sends out monthly news summaries. It's a good site, but unfortunately is not white text on blue. For someone who spends far too much time working with text on screen, this is much easier on the eyes (for me at least).

[RowdyBacon]

It's a good site, but unfortunately is not white text on blue. For someone who spends far too much time working with text on screen, this is much easier on the eyes (for me at least).

Hmmm...that's interesting as I've had the completely opposite experience. Obviously this is truly an individual preference, but I do recall reading somewhere, some time ago, that the use of stark white text on a dark primary color background wasn't a recommended web design convention.

This was based on studies of how the human eye processes light and color. Long story short, such a combination typically leads to eye strain and eye fatigue much faster than dark (or black) text on a light (or white) background. When you consider the fact that almost all printed material adheres to this approach, I think you'd have to agree there's probably something to this. Imagine trying to read a book that used BBL's white text/dark blue background color scheme. I'll venture few people would ever finish it!

[velocipede]

I've read the opposite (ha ha), but I will look into it more.

[tq]

When you consider the fact that almost all printed material adheres to this approach, I think you'd have to agree there's probably something to this. Imagine trying to read a book that used BBL's white text/dark blue background color scheme. I'll venture few people would ever finish it!

I guess this has more to do with the amount of ink you need and the colour of paper in general...
Anyway, these reading studies have a flaw - we cannot know for sure whether our percpetions would be different if we would be used to reading light print on dark material. Our culture tells us that the standard is the other way 'round.

Anyway, it's probably more the content that counts than the color of the background...

[tq]

My biggest problem with the other sites is their structure: I find the most of them confusing. Macmusic and OSXRecording make me nervous with all these comercials, buttons, udnerlined things and so on. I am a Mac user. I need simple user interfaces...

[RowdyBacon]

I guess this has more to do with the amount of ink you need and the colour of paper in general...
Anyway, these reading studies have a flaw - we cannot know for sure whether our percpetions would be different if we would be used to reading light print on dark material. Our culture tells us that the standard is the other way 'round.

Actually no. The premise of dark type/light background is based on sound typographical principles. Typography is the art of printing with type. While some might argue that the web has its own set of conventions, when it comes to displaying text for maximum legibility and readability, the standards are the same. I invite you to check out these 2 links for more information:

http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/typography/index.htm
http://www.fonts.com/AboutFonts/Article ... dColor.htm

Any professional graphic designer will pretty much concur. Light type on a dark background may look "cool" at first glance, but it's definitely not conducive to extended reading.

Anyway, it's probably more the content that counts than the color of the background...

No argument there. But if the content is hard to read due to the color scheme of the site, then it actually has little value.

[beej]

Hmm - I find KVR nice and easy to read.

Macs also have a nice usability mode where if you press CTRL->ALT->COMMAND->8 it switches to mono, inverse, white text on black, designed to easy readibility...

I think it's more about the right brightness and contrast relative levels of text and background, rather than the absolute values...